A Hands On Review Of Midjourneys AI Video Generator
Midjourney, a well-known name among the original AI image generators, has significantly evolved. It's no longer confined to Discord and has expanded its services with new models, including its latest seventh-generation image model. Now, Midjourney has ventured into the competitive field of AI video generation.
Having explored its creative and detailed AI images, a hands-on test of its V1 video model was essential. The experience was classic Midjourney: delivering fun and engaging results, albeit with some common AI quirks, all packaged within an intuitive and fast interface. While Midjourney presents a competitive option for AI enthusiasts, it's important to understand its limitations before investing. Here is a breakdown of the experience, including both the successful and failed video generations.
The Good, Bad, and Physics-Defying Nature of Midjourney Videos
Currently, Midjourney offers image-to-video generation, allowing you to animate your own images with or without text prompts. This method helps constrain the model's output, reducing the chances of wild hallucinations. However, the addition of a direct text-to-video feature would be a welcome improvement for those who prefer to ideate with text.
To push its artistic limits, I first generated AI images and then tasked Midjourney with animating them using specific instructions. As with most AI creative tools, the results were a mixed bag.
The Good: Midjourney's videos are simple to create, easy to upscale, and feature the platform's signature colorful and whimsical style. The process is remarkably fast, typically taking only a minute or two to generate four variations. Users can adjust settings like dimensions, and a unique slider allows you to increase the 'weirdness' of a video. The final clips are capped at five seconds and come without watermarks or audio.
The Bad: Midjourney continues to struggle with prompt adherence—creating exactly what is requested. This is a familiar issue from its image generator. For instance, a prompt to animate tree roots while adding floating fairies only resulted in the fairies appearing, with the roots remaining static. Text generation is also messy and unreadable, falling short of the high bar set by competitors like OpenAI's image generator.
Object permanence is another significant hurdle. The model inconsistently follows the laws of physics, causing overlapping elements to vanish and reappear randomly. It required numerous attempts to create a video of Michael Jordan dunking over LeBron James without his hand passing through the hoop or the ball disintegrating the net. The platform also permits the generation of semi-recognizable celebrities, with the AI moderator only intervening occasionally.
Ultimately, the best results were achieved by taking a well-crafted image and giving Midjourney simple animation instructions. Adding too many moving parts often proved frustrating.
How Midjourney Stacks Up Against Competitors
The ideal AI video service depends on your specific project needs. While amateur creators and Midjourney fans will find the tool enjoyable, its quirks and short video length make it less suitable for professional use.
A key area where Midjourney lags is audio. If your project requires AI-generated or synchronized audio, you'll need to look at services like Google's Veo 3 or Adobe Firefly, as Midjourney's V1 lacks this capability.
Midjourney excels as an AI brainstorming partner, sparking creative ideas and animating existing images with ease. However, translating complex, specific ideas into reality can be challenging and requires significant patience and prompt refinement.
Midjourney Pricing, Availability, and Privacy
Midjourney is a paid-only service available on its website and Discord. Its subscription plans start at an affordable $10 per month, which is cheaper than Google's Veo 3 and OpenAI's Sora, both starting at $20 per month. More expensive plans offer faster generation times and the ability to run multiple jobs concurrently.
According to its privacy policy, Midjourney can use the information you provide to train its algorithms and may share it with third parties. All your creations are public by default unless you subscribe to the $60 per month Pro plan or the $120 per month Mega plan for 'stealth mode'.
Notably, Midjourney is facing a major copyright infringement lawsuit from Disney and Universal, who have called the service a 'bottomless pit of plagiarism' for allowing users to create realistic images of protected characters. The case is currently ongoing.
For more tips, learn how to write effective AI image prompts and fix common AI image errors.
